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First HD radio purchase

K

kd5pck2

So I may be a little late to the game, but I am interested in getting an HD radio just for the hell of it. Sure, there's probably an app that I already have on my phone that I could get the same programming on, but I like radio. There's something about receiving through the air that I like.

Anyway, I live on the outskirts of New Orleans, approx. 35-40 north. If you really want to look it up, search zip code 70471 and you can see where I am located in relation to where all the transmitters are in the New Orleans area. That will be my main target area for now. I am interested in either a portable or tabletop unit that I could attach an external antenna to. I am also interested in trying to pull in a couple of stations east of me on the Mississippi coast, hence the external antenna. Can anyone here suggest something for my, under $100, that will allow the connection of an external antenna? Doing a quick search, it seems the HD radio offerings are pretty slim.

This is the antenna I am considering: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...iveASIN=B001HKM1HM&linkCode=as2&tag=dietry-20 It's not that expensive and I figure I won't be out too much if my sudden interest in HD radio fades after a week or two. Any comments on this antenna form actual users is appreciated as well.

Thanks in advance.
 
Google "HD Radio in New Orleans" or something similar. Pickings seem to be might slim down there. Jazz, blues and classical seem to be it (from NPR). I use an Insignia that I picked up on sale at Radio Shack. But that was when I was in an area with HD. Now I am in an FM wasteland.

I would recommend finding an aftermarket car stereo dealer who will let you play around with his HD display units. Give you some idea of what is out there (at least on FM) without having to buy something :) May be other stations not on the lists.
 
K6JHU said:
Google "HD Radio in New Orleans" or something similar. Pickings seem to be might slim down there. Jazz, blues and classical seem to be it (from NPR). I use an Insignia that I picked up on sale at Radio Shack. But that was when I was in an area with HD. Now I am in an FM wasteland.

I would recommend finding an aftermarket car stereo dealer who will let you play around with his HD display units. Give you some idea of what is out there (at least on FM) without having to buy something :) May be other stations not on the lists.
Click to expand...

I know there's not much listed for the New Orleans area but that's not a big deal to me. I would like to get a portable unit to take when travelling as well. Right now my focus is looking for an inexpensive radio to play around with. The programming isn't much of a concern to me at the time. I'm not looking to install a new dash unit in my vehicle so that's why I'm focusing on tabletop and/or portables.
 
The idea is to go to the stereo dealer and play around with the head ends just to find out what is really out there.

I have one home unit and three car units. When maintained properly by the station, HD-1 sounds fantastic. HD-2 sounds great, except for the dropouts. On AM HD you can hear the power line noise and noise floor just drop right out. Signal doesn't lock on all that well and generally the programming s**ks on AM. I have had an AM lock at 50 miles with a 50 kW flame thrower.
 
You can buy a Visteon HD Jump add-on radio tuner for cheap if you want to experiment and can provide it with 12VDC and a decent antenna. Mine had a bad soldering job on the antenna jacks and was intermittent, so be prepared to do some soldering work if you 'jump' for one for about $30.
 
Of course, any HD radio, if it has AM, will also have abysmally limited high end response for analog AM maybe 3 to 4 khz if you're lucky.

Depending on manufacturer, your existing dash radio may have a fine sounding analog AM section.

Just be aware that all HD radios never permit full fidelity on AM, thereby making the screechy
codec HD seem far better than the super-muffled analog audio. This is the way the chipset works, and I don't think there's any manufacturer
who could do a higher fidelity AM than any other.

They're using canned technology and there's simply no ability for any company's engineers to make them sound better, even if they wanted to.
They COULD make a separate AM tuner/detector and decide the fidelity in their own design, and let the HD decode "light" switch over to the ibiquity chipset.
But no manufacturer would ever pay to design in an extra tuner just so AM could sound acceptable.
 
Tom Wells said:
Of course, any HD radio, if it has AM, will also have abysmally limited high end response for analog AM maybe 3 to 4 khz if you're lucky.
Click to expand...

The good news - this limited frequency response is all done in the audio section by R's and C's in radios manufactured in the last 30 years or so. If you know what you are doing, five minutes of hacking will give you a fantastic sounding wideband AM radio!
 
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